


lover in gold

by goodmorningbeloved (3799steps)



Series: all the magic i have known [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Living Sculpture Tony, M/M, Magic, Sculptor Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 15:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19276621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3799steps/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: On: a sculptor touched by grief, and a sculpture touched by magic.





	lover in gold

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost from [tumblr](https://goodmorningbeloved.tumblr.com/post/178155071242/hmm-so-this-is-the-beginnings-of-a-sculptorsteve). i'm still v much infatuated with this idea and plan to write more for this verse someday, this was just a scene that wouldn't leave my brain and needed to be written out. i didn't mean for it to end with a cliffhanger or anything, that's just where it stopped in my head hhh
> 
> spoiler-y tag at the end notes because i wanted to keep it a surprise. if this turns into a full fic i'll tag it properly, but for now it's pretty much contained in a single line, so i thought this was minor enough

The first breath feels like rock scraping down his lungs.

He opens his eyes and takes a deep breath anyway. By the time he exhales, the magic is pouring life into the last crevices of his body, and his legs are soft skin and sturdy bone, and his bare feet can feel the cool surface of the pedestal.

There’s a brief moment when he is still: a living translation of the clay statue that used to stand where he stands now. 

And then his legs, unpracticed and weak, give out from under him, and he crumples to the floor in a billow of rich gold drapes, the impact punching out his second breath.  _Lover in Gold_ , his creator had named him. 

 _It’s really Lover on the Floor now,_ he thinks giddily, and it’s only his vocal chords unpracticed with laughter that keeps the sound of it from bubbling out.

The sheets are hopelessly sprawled over wooden floorboards, which are distinctly smooth under him, almost as smooth as the pedestal had been. Uncomfortable, he draws the sheets tighter around himself —  _cold_ , the magic whispers to him, though he’s not sure what it means. Through a window to his left, he can see an expanse of darkness ( _the sky_ ) and a brilliant light that hangs, full and round, in the center ( _the moon_ ). The room is dark and quiet around him.  _Night._  

Carefully, he stands.

A man lies slumped over a nearby worktable, his head tucked between a pair of loosely folded arms. All he can see of him is unruly blond hair and a hand that is streaked with clay, but the slow rise and fall of his shoulders suggest that the man is fast asleep.

He makes his way over in careful steps, letting his body move according to some distant muscle memory. The sheets drag behind him, too large when he’s hooked the other end around his shoulders.  _Cold_ , the magic whispers again, more insistently, though he still doesn’t quite understand. He ignores it and reaches for the man’s exposed hand.

The man makes a soft noise ( _a breath_ ) and shifts slightly, but doesn’t wake.

He turns the hand over gently.  _Warm_ , the magic sighs, and here he understands finally what it means to be cold. The man’s palm is well-worked, calloused, and his fingers are still streaked in dried clay. Unfamiliar-looking tools lie scattered over the worktable. The magic doesn’t need to tell him that this is his creator; he thinks he could have recognized that touch in flesh and in clay.

He smiles, feeling an unnamed sensation flood through him. He lets go of the hand for now, and his creator goes on sleeping.

Near the man’s elbow, there is a pile of papers. The topmost one bears an image of someone sketched out in bold strokes of charcoal—  _a drawing_ , he realizes. Dark eyes framed by loose dark waves of hair stare back at him, their corners crinkled slightly. The rest of the face is hidden under his creator’s elbow, but the drawing is smiling, he knows it. Something about that face strikes him as familiar.

There are more papers underneath, but he can’t see them. Curious, he takes a corner of the pile and tugs.

His creator makes another noise and buries his face a little deeper into the crook of his arm, but that means the weight on the papers is heavier.

Frowning, he tugs. Tugs again.

He misjudges. The papers come loose, but his fingers, as clumsy as his legs had been, don’t hold on well enough. With a loud rustle, the papers slip entirely off the table and flutter to the floor, and in the silence of the room the noise is deafening.

He misses the way his creator finally lifts his head from the table. His gaze is riveted to the floor, to the numerous drawings now strewn over the floorboards and the edges of the sheet alike, to the dark, smiling eyes of the same man etched on every piece of paper.

“Tony?” whispers a voice, at the same time he thinks,  _That man is me._

Tony lifts his gaze.

Hazy blue eyes stare back at him. His creator hasn’t quite sat up all the way, but there’s no mistaking that he’s awake now, and he's looking at Tony and _seeing_ him. “ _Tony_ ,” he says. His voice doesn’t sound right and his lips remain parted like he wants to say more, but nothing else comes. His eyes are wide, fixed on Tony.

Uncertain, Tony watches him back. Time stretches out between them, thickening the silence, until his creator rises slowly from the stool, coming around the table without ever lifting his hand from its surface, as if to keep himself anchored. His gaze never strays; neither does Tony’s.

His creator is just slightly taller that he has to tilt his head up to look at him. This close, he realizes that the blue of the man’s eyes aren’t hazy at all, just rendered so by the moonlight. They are clear, and Tony can name what he sees in them: disbelief, confusion. Awe. And, inexplicably, grief.

His mind grows noisier by the second, full of thoughts that his unpracticed tongue can’t yet translate into words, but there is one that he feels certain enough to say: “Steve?”

Steve flinches like Tony has struck him. But his hand, that same one that Tony can remember carefully carving out the shape of his jaw, comes up to cup the side of his face. His fingers, the same ones that Tony can remember molding the shape of his lips, stroke over his cheek. "I've missed you," he whispers.

 _I've missed you too_ , sighs Tony's thoughts, in a voice that sounds like his own yet feels as borrowed as the sheets he continues to clutch around himself. 

Steve's hand stills. “You’re a dream,” he murmurs. Something about him sounds devastated, and Tony feels his chest splinter too, hurting with him.

 _Am I?_ Tony wants to ask, but whatever magic had helped him before stays silent now. Perhaps he will ask it in the morning.

For now, Steve holds his every bit of his attention, and it even seems that Tony holds every bit of his too. He finds that it is an entirely different feeling to be seen like this, with his skin and his tongue and his beating heart, but it is a good different. 

“You feel so  _real._ ” Steve’s other hand settles over the back of his neck, impossibly warm and familiar. “How? You’re…”

“I am,” Tony sighs, leaning into his touch. _Yes._ This, he can be certain of.

In the next moment, Steve winds his arms around him and pulls him close. There’s nothing of the gentle artist that had so meticulously carved him to life: Steve’s hold now is tight, desperate, like Tony might slip from him without warning, and it’s all Tony can do to hold him to assure him that he won’t.

“You’re not,” Steve says into his hair, and he’s weeping, trembling. “You can’t be. I buried you myself, Tony. I was there, I  _buried you_.”

**Author's Note:**

> [spoiler-y tag: reference to the death of the real, human Tony.]


End file.
